by Jamilah Hoffman
We hold speak outs every Wednesday in front of the library at the University of Houston. On Halloween, we decided to dress up in orange jumpsuits with blood splattered faces representing detainees being held and tortured in Guantanamo Bay. Needless to say, we stood out.
A small crowd gathered and one woman joined the speak out saying that anyone who is elected president should be forced to take an IQ test. We also had a man, a veteran, question our military service. I then asked him what does serving in the military have to do with speaking out against torture. Basically, in the case of the torture committed at Abu Ghraib, he thought that you can’t blame the higher officers for what the lower level soldiers did. I told him that the higher level officers knew what was going on, that they condoned it and Rumsfeld even signed off on it.
People were confused by the orange jumpsuits. Many people thought we were prisoners, some thought I was a pumpkin. Someone even thought I was Lil’ Kim, which was just plain silly, but wearing the jumpsuits gave us an opportunity to explain to people who are unaware of the problem, what’s really going on. It also gave me the opportunity to dialogue with people who I would’ve never thought felt the same way about this particular crime of the Bush regime.